there's only us, there's only this
by violent darlings
Summary: Kay AUs. Now showing: Erik proposes to Christine, and she surprises him. Fluffy, angsty, sometimes humorous smut. You're warned.
1. there's only us, there's only this

Erik / Christine. Picks up from that moment in Kay when Erik (infamously) pops Christine in a wedding dress to sing Aida and then has a crisis of lust.

**Disclaimer:** The wedding scene belongs to Susan Kay from the epic novel Phantom, which was not a) written in second person POV or b) quite this dirty. Although considering stylistically this is about as far as Ms Kay's work one could get; it's nice to indulge my deep and abiding love for second person perspective. Title from RENT.

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><p><em><strong>there's only us, there's only this<strong>_

_"I'm beginning to realise just how much of a child she really is, how terrifyingly immature and vulnerable... even unstable. There's a fatal flaw running through her, like a hairline crack in a Ming Dynasty vase, but that very imperfection makes me love her with even greater tenderness. Whoever marries Christine is going to have to be prepared to play the father as well as the lover..."_

_Erik, Susan Kay's Phantom_

He shouts. And for the first time you shout back.

"I am not a child!" you roar back at him, the sheer volume of your voice shocking even you. Erik is wrapped around himself as though shielding from a blow, and he curls even tighter when you scream. But you cannot stop. You have been silent around Erik for too long, silenced by his power and his anger and his mystery, but you have found your voice again (for the first time?) and you will not let it go. "If you're sick then you should let me help you - I'm not just a child you can order around and you will tell me what is the matter!" You pause for breath. Half of you is cheering yourself on and the other half is gasping in horror. Erik merely sits at the piano bench, arms locked around his torso, without response. "If this is about Raoul - " And that snaps him out of it sure enough, his masked head twisting to stare at you with those luminous eyes, mocking and cruelly amused.

"Raoul!" he says, with an indelicate noise than in a lesser man might be a snort. "De Chagny! No, my dear, it is not! And yet, perhaps it is..."

He makes so little sense sometimes. Up til now it bemused you, frightened you, fascinated you. But now it infuriates you too.

"There is nothing between Raoul and I," you stress. "Nothing, do you hear me? And even if there was, there certainly wouldn't be after that shocking display by his companions! Soliciting ... _those_ kind of _women_ out where anyone can see..." The audacity of them! That ring would be going back to Raoul the moment you return to the world above the Opera, and you would certainly be taking it off your precious crucifix as soon as possible. "Erik, what about your illness?" you ask, hoping to distract him, but he waves you off with the flick of one elegant hand.

"I'm not sick, my dear," he murmurs, in a voice so reduced you hardly believe it is his. "It has passed." It is as though all the fight has worn out of him, been leeched out of him to return him to your gentle tutor once more. Or perhaps not. Perhaps that mad, reckless fury has merely been caged instead, and might reappear at any time. Your own anger has tired you out; is it so surprising his would do the same to him?

"I intend to retire now, Erik," you say to him. "Goodnight," and you turn on your heel. You don't need his permission to leave and you don't intend to ask for it.

"Goodnight, Christine."

Back in your room, you pace like a possessed woman, the wedding dress swishing vigorously in your wake. You want to tear it off but something stops you; the way he'd looked at you, in the dress, as though you were every fantasy and every nightmare made real all in one. No one else has ever looked at you like that before, as if you were their only reason for existence. Erik's love for you pervades every inch of the house here under the lake like a miasma of gentle fog, creeping into every shadow and every nook and cranny and even into you, changing you. And yes, he had shouted, but oh, the look in his eyes when you had shouted back? As though a knife had twisted in his chest. He has given you so much, and look what you have done to him.

You screamed at him that you are not a child, but you have been content to play that role because it is simple. because the way Erik makes you feel is not safe and not normal, not easy and not sweet, but it knocks you over breathless and you think it may be the most you've ever felt. Yes, even eclipsing your father's death, even greater than that. For you are a woman now.

You heard someone in the Opera discuss the moment they grew up once, a split second of time where they ceased to be a child and learned to live in the adult world. well, it has taken you longer than most people, but now you have you will make up for lost time. propriety be damned, this is Erik. Erik has killed people, Erik has abducted you, Erik has extorted the managers and terrorised the ballet rats and tormented La Carlotta, but oh, this is Erik. and Erik loves you. And this night, the waking up of this anger and this passion inside of you - this is you, growing up. Erik has called you a child because you have acted one, but not anymore. You are not a child and you do not need to be sheltered behind Raoul's forgiving arms anymore. You can stand on your own two feet, you can be the creator of your own destiny. You will not be a child anymore.

But perhaps for all his airs and age, Erik is like a child, a lost little boy in the body of a man, with the desires and needs of a man. He longs for all the things a man longs for with the single-minded focus of a child denied too long of what they want, and more than anything you find you want to give it to him. For you are a woman, and you do care for him, certainly more than anyone else out there in the world. Who else will take care of him, caress and tend to him, unless it is you?

He may be a murderer, a madman and a genius, but he is still Erik; raw, human Erik, underneath all the masks and the disguises and those high, high walls of pride he has built for himself. You will tear them down. You may not love him yet, but you like him, and you feel sorry for him, and his voice stirs up feelings inside of you that you never could have dreamed of. And that is enough.

The sickness he spoke of - it was not his heart, not the physical one, at least. It was something else. And you think you know, think that the living man beneath the mask is just as mortal as you, just as susceptible to the flesh and all its pleasures and pains. Erik wanted you. Wanted you as a man wants a woman, and certainly not as a man wants a child. For all his words, you are not a child to him. You will never let yourself be a child for anyone again.

He will not touch you without your consent. He will not do that.

So you must do it for him.

How long you pace in the Louis Philippe room you do not know, until finally you find yourself standing in the middle of the carpet with what is no doubt a stupefyingly dull expression on your face. You remove your crucifix and take Raoul's ring from the chain, looking at it only a moment before tucking it away inside your dresser. And your mind is made up.

Erik looks up at you in surprise as your bedroom door clicks open and just like that, the earlier tension returns. The moment he looks at you again, you lose your breath and your head spins but you are resolute.

"Christine." His voice resonates in the cool darkness. "Were you not planning to retire?"

"I was," you reply, stepping closer to him, into the sphere of light surrounding him and the piano. "But I found myself unable to sleep and realised there was still more I needed to say to you."

He turns away, retreating back into himself. You won't let him. "I think my dear, you'll _find_ you've said quite enough. You've made your point, I shouldn't treat you as a child. Now, I ask of you, go to bed."

Such contradiction in him. He may have listened to you but he didn't _hear_, and it is not enough for you. So you step forward. "No," you say into the tension-laden air. His masked face snaps to yours. "I will not. I want you to take off your mask."

And you do, oh, how you do. You want to see him, you want to know if you can bear it. If you can tolerate that ugliness inches from your face, trailing kisses over your skin... if you can enjoy it. There is only one way to find out, but Erik is incensed by your request even as he complies. You reflect that he must be quite angry to take off his mask so easily and so rapidly, and then you are not thinking of his anger at all, because you are staring at him, directly into his ruined face, and you are not afraid. You don't really feel anything for it other than the knowledge that underneath it is the mind you have come to know so well, the man who loves you with every fibre of his bruised and battered heart. And your direct, unflinching gaze infuriates him more than you could have ever guessed before.

"Well, then, Christine?" he bellows. You do not shrink away from his wrath. "Is this what you wanted, you foolish, teasing, maddening girl? Am I quite as arresting now as when you first saw me? Do be honest, my dear girl, you needn't try and spare my feelings. Do _you_ find me handsome, Christine?" he roars, his face an inch from your own. "Do you find me charming, pleasant to look upon? TELL ME!"

You hold his gaze. "No," you reply candidly. "I find you very ugly. But I believe, Erik, underneath your skin and bones you look as any other man would look." He deflates. Erik's moods are as fickle as the weather, rain and storm replaced by tired grey clouds replaced by sun replaced by snow. Round and round, always the same, and yet always changing. Keeping up with him is both exhausting and exhilarating.

"Do not be so sure of that, my dear," he replies, his anger replaced by quiet weariness. "I am an aberration of nature, one of God's own little experiments with his powers of creation. Perhaps under this semblance of a face there is an even greater horror." He looks to be about to launch into one of his fits of black whimsy, muttering about anything and everything to come into his head, playing great and terrible music one moment and then light-hearted parlour melodies the next. You have to stop him before he slips into that odd, mad mood; distract him, one way or another.

"If I had been ugly," you say before you can think about it and stop yourself, "would you have loved me?"

He turns so fast you fear he might do himself an injury. "Christine - " he begins, but you interrupt. Rudeness be damned, he will hear this, and you will have his answer. Now you are curious.

"Or if I walked out in front of a carriage tomorrow and was covered in scars from head to toe, would you turn from me?"

He answers as though the words are dragged from him, costing him something he did not know how to give. "No. Of course not."

"Then why should I turn from you? Why should it be different between us?"

"That - it's different." You get the distinct impression you have flustered him.

"How so?"

His throat works and his lips move, but no sound comes out. You feel a flicker of pride. You, the little chorus girl, have managed to bemuse the Phantom of the Opera enough to render him speechless. And he turns away, lifting the damned mask to tie it back to his face.

"Don't."

He whips around to face you. "Why not, Christine?" he asks, lovely voice raw. "Haven't you humiliated me enough?" The sadness in his eyes is enough to make you blurt it out.

"How can I kiss you through your mask?"

"Kiss - kiss me?" he stammers out. Your dear Erik, stammering because of you. If you were not already set upon this path, you certainly are now. "You mock me."

"I do not. Oh, Erik, I couldn't mock you, not with this. Please," and you draw closer, ever still, until you are so close to him you can feel his heart racing in his chest. You look up into his face, knot your fingers into the lapels of his coat. Oh, he's so close, and you don't flinch, not now. What is there to be afraid of anymore now, when you know Erik himself is far more in fear of the power you hold over him than you have ever been of his face.

And you kiss him.

He is cold, oh, so very cold. His lips move against yours clumsily as though he has never kissed anyone before - of course not. At first he is tentative, iron-rigid, as though he believes this to be merely a cruel jest or a trick of the senses and in a moment he will return to his old reality, cold and alone. Well, you can't have that, can you? And you set his hands on your waist and that appears to be the push he needs because he pulls you flush against him and - oh. Well. That's interesting.

However much you have grown up this night, however many fears you have suppressed or done away with altogether, there is one inviolable truth you cannot deny. Confidence aside, you are still a virgin, and all you know of men and women together comes from La Sorelli's tales of the comte and the other men she's had over the years. Your planned seduction may be over before it has ever started.

No. You are the master of your own destiny. You will not fear this. How hard could it be?

Figuratively, of course.

He draws away from you with a sigh, resting his thin lips against your forehead, a kiss and a benediction and a... farewell? No. Surely not. "Oh, my dear," he sighs. "You are such a good girl. I am so very indescribably grateful to you for what you have done. I will take you home tomorrow."

You're confused, until you realise he thinks you only did it because you pity him. Well, you do pity him, but maybe you love him too, and you owe it to you both to investigate this strange connection between the two of you. "I don't want to go," you enunciate clearly. "I don't want to leave you tomorrow morning. I want to stay. I want to stay with you." You hope the repetition will help it sink in and he will get the message. You don't want to be sent home, not until you have managed to figure out the puzzle that is Erik. And that, you think a little ironically, may take a lifetime, though whether his or yours you don't know. He is so much older than you, after all.

Erik is standing watching you, his head cocked to one side, as though analysing you with that marvellous mind and not comprehending what comes up as the results. "Do you know, I could almost believe you mean it," he muses lightly, but his eyes are focussed on you with that familiar intensity. "The way you look at me - you are a wonderful actress, Christine, but surely no one can be so good - ?" The way it's phrased, almost a question, breaks your heart. Poor, poor Erik.

"No, I'm not acting, Erik. I'm not lying. It's just the truth." He sighs, and it sounds like the wind through trees and a river singing its way over rocks. The way this man has so easily become the centre of your world is a little off-putting, and as thrilling as touching your hand to a flame.

"I don't know how I'll be able to bear it if you're lying to me, Christine." You can't help but move towards him, lay a hand on his arm.

"You don't need to know. I promise I'm not lying." He looks down at the ground, and you're aware he doesn't believe. "Erik, when I sang with you tonight, I was a child. But you have changed me. I'm a woman," you say, almost desperate to have him understand. "I've been content to play the child because it's easy but I don't want my life to just be easy. I want it to be _complete_." You trail off, frustrated with your own inability to articulate what you want so much to say, but Erik lays one gloved hand over your own on his arm.

"I understand," is all he says, but his eyes are worth a thousand words and you exhale in relief, glancing towards your bedroom. He follows your gaze. "What is it?" he asks, even as you walk towards the Louis Philippe room. He does not follow you, arms folded, eyes wary.

"Are you not coming?" you ask. His eyes spark.

"Coming, Christine?"

"To bed. With me." You walk back to him, take his hand in your own with a sigh, and pull him unresisting into the Louis Philippe room. You close the door, and he is _there_, so close, taller than tall and overpowering your senses. You breathe a little faster.

"Christine..." It is a warning. "What are you doing?"

"Do I look like I know what I'm doing?" you snap feverishly, and before he can protest you grip his lapels hard in your hands and kiss him again.

It is different this time. Before he had been tentative and shy and so had you, but you know Erik is nothing if not a speedy learner and he quickly takes possession of the kiss, his lips demanding on yours, his tongue moving against your own. Your knees are more than a little weak and you feel hopelessly out of your depth, you and this hideous man, doing things you've been told only married people should do. But he is ugly, so very ugly, and you think that maybe the standards for ordinary people don't apply to Erik. And you are not so very ordinary either, not anymore. So perhaps this is right.

You pull away and breathe, "Come to bed."

He attends to the lights with shaking hands, and in the bathroom you splash water on your face and wish you had listened a little closer to La Sorelli's tales. And when you come out he is standing there looking awkward and oddly, so very young.

Perhaps we should undress," he says, and then looks stricken. "Christine - that is to say, of course - I don't mean to presume - "

"Good idea," you reply briskly, and turning away, you quickly begin at the buttons of the wedding dress. Perhaps he thinks you have turned away because of distaste at seeing him nude, but in truth you are sure your face is flushing a dull brick red with embarrassment and shame. And yet, you are not, not really. This is the indoctrinated response that people all your life have told you that you should feel at the thought of someone seeing you unclothed. And maybe, just maybe, just a little, you're worried about what he might think of you naked, if you'll be enough for him.

When you turn back, bare to your skin, Erik has already slipped under the sheets. He is gazing resolutely at the wall, away from you. Oh, he's such a gentleman. You lie there in silence with him for a while, the two of you side by side staring up at the ceiling, until the absurdity of the situation catches up with you and you have to giggle a little.

"This is ridiculous," you laugh. He arches an eyebrow, rolling onto his side to face you.

"Do tell me what so amuses you," he replies in that familiar dry tone, and you only laugh harder.

"Look at us," you say, when you can breathe again. "The pair of us. We finally manage to get into bed, and neither of us have any idea what to do!"

Erik quirks his lips in a half smile. "I do have some idea, Christine," he admits, and a lead weight settles in your stomach.

"Have you - " Your throat constricts and his eyes widen.

"No!" he assures you. "No, I've never, not personally - but, well, there is... literature available on the subject, if one goes looking for it, of course." He holds his eyes with your own, and you're caught by then like a bird staring into the eyes of a snake. "It's only ever been you, Christine," and you release the breath you've been holding. You don't know why it matters so much to you - but if you are going to damn yourself by making love before marriage, it might as be to someone worthy. You think that maybe God won't send you to hell for making love to Erik, anyway. You rather think God owes Erik one by now.

"I'm glad," you murmur, your voice barely there, and his hand cups your cheek tenderly.

"I was waiting for you."

He's waited so much longer than you. It isn't fair to make him wait much longer. And so, abruptly, you roll over to the centre of the bed until you are facing him, so close you can feel his cool breath on your face. He doesn't smell of death. He smells faintly musty like the house itself, like the fine fabrics he favours, like ink and parchment and some kind of aftershave. He smells like a man. He's your man now. You are body to body with him, pressed breast to breast, thigh to thigh. Although he is so much taller than you, you find that somehow the two of you fit together, and you adore the sensation of being wrapped in him, protected. No, you're not a child anymore, but you like feeling safe regardless. It's only human.

He watches you without words, impassive despite the lack of mask on his face. You can feel him hard against your leg. It doesn't frighten you anymore. But perhaps it frightens him, because despite the warm bed and your warmer body next to him, he is shaking like a leaf in a gale.

"Christine," he breathes. The blankets are pulled almost up to his chin; you can only see his maimed face and his collarbones, the tops of his shoulders, and his hands, clutching the quilt with such ferocity his knuckles whiten. Those long, spindly fingers, so elegant on the piano, on teacups, on books - could they work such magic on you, play you like one of his beautiful instruments?

And you get an idea, a wonderful, dreadful, naughty idea. Erik loves your voice, you know, for its sweetness when singing, its flexibility and range and beauty. You wonder what else he might love about it.

"I can't stop looking at them," you murmur. He jerks away from you, but you reach out, place a hand on his hip to keep him with you. He goes still under your fingers, but you can feel the tenseness in his frame, a caged animal beneath your palm.

"Looking at what?" he grits out through his teeth.

"Y-your hands, Erik," you stammer out, but to your surprise the words are easier than you expect. "Even when I was resisting you, I couldn't stop looking at your hands. I was so afraid you'd see and know what I was thinking... that I was imagining you touching me... everywhere..." It's not a trick. You have been fascinated and captivated by him all along, drawn hopelessly into the marvellous contradiction of him; the gentleman with the face of a monster, the genius with the temperament of a madman. You've been looking at him all along.

"Wretched woman," he groans. "You'll be the death of me." Part of you is alarmed, but it vanishes when you see that he is smiling, with that odd nearly lipless mouth of his curled up into a grin. He's happy. And so you take his hand and link it with yours, draw it to your skin.

"Touch me," and he shivers, and complies.

"So soft," he whispers, tracing a finger down your shoulder lightly. You shudder and his eyes darken. "These hands, Christine?" he asks roughly, but his hands are as light as snowflakes and just as cold. They soon warm though. "You imagined these hands - _my_ hands on you?"

You have to bite your lip to restrain a whimper. "God, yes, Erik," you murmur. "Angel, please - "

At the slip he retreats a little, averting his eyes, and when he finally looks back at you they are steely. "I don't want you to look at me," he blurts, and you think he may be - no, you know he is blushing, mortified, even, to confess this to you.

"I don't mind," you hurry to assure him. "How you look, I mean. I don't mind it."

"I know," he says, and it has the air of a confession. "I know that. But I do mind it."

You bite your lip. You want to look at him, to see him in all his strange and wonderful glory. You are not getting into this with any expectations of him being as a 'normal' man is - not that you have anything to compare him to, anyway. And this is about him, hasn't it always been about him? This is about Erik's loneliness and despair and love for you, and his desire to be treated just for one night as a normal man. He thinks if you see him in his entirety you will be horrified and flee, and you understand you cannot fix a lifetime of rejection in one night. And so you acquiesce, but with one demand. "Next time," you reply, and the expression in his eyes at the idea there might be a next time both tears at and warms you. "Next time, you'll let me look."

He nods. You don't know if it's because he believes you or he wants to believe you or if he's just letting it go, and you don't honestly care. The heat in his eyes makes you want to be touched again, and so you sink back against the pillows and close your eyes as he begins those feather light touches all over your body once again.

And something else, something cold and moist, kissing down your neck with the utmost gentleness as those strong, exquisite hands brush over your breast. He finds the tender places on you and lavishes attention on them, and you have to fight to remain still even as his soft caresses drive you half-mad. You can't stop the moan, though. "Christine?" he asks, his voice sounding worried, and damn the promise you open your eyes and twist, pulling his hard slim body on top of you and kissing him hard.

Erik responds enthusiastically, his hands against your back pressing him against you, moving, roaming up and back around to tease at your nipples and oh God, why hadn't anyone told you it could _feel_ like this? Quite clearly the universe has been holding out on you and should have informed you of this years ago, and you writhe underneath him, subtly begging for more. In a flash he grips both your hands in one of his own and raises them above your head, rendering you helpless. You're shocked at the way your body buzzes with joy at the sensation. In the dim light his eyes are dark, the pupils wide, and his smile is both tender and a little wicked. "Naughty, Christine," he purrs, and you thrill to it. More than you pleasuring him, he's discovered how to pleasure you, and it makes him_ so very happy_. Your eyes tingle with the onset of tears but they're of joy, and you laugh in delight as the puzzle in your head finally clicks into place.

It's Erik. It's always been Erik.

You love him, and he loves you. And it's _perfect_.

"Amused, love?" he asks, voice deep and almost a growl, and you arch up into him, winding your legs around him.

"Happy, Erik," you reply. "I'm so happy."

"Good," he simply replies, and lowers his head to kiss you again.

It hurts, at first, when he presses inside you. But you were once a ballerina after all and you've done the splits more times than you recall, so it's not exactly the blinding, excruciating pain the ballet rats talk of in their dressing room in excited and scandalised tones. You focus on Erik, his face, his hands gripping your hips, the way his eyes flutter shut and he groans shakily against your throat, as though you're the only thing holding him together. As though the world is a hurricane and you're saving him. You kind of love that.

And then his hand finds that place between your legs that feels like electricity and a flawless aria and Erik's smile and heaven all at once, and suddenly the rhythm goes from slow and sweet to mad, clashing lips and tongues battling and _oh dear Lord is that the bed banging against the wall how cliché is that?_ The things you think of, rocking against him, as he falls apart above you and you think you're probably doing the same below him and its so, so good.

And you can't really think anymore.

He follows you a few moments later, collapsing on top of you, breathless and gasping and his heart a thunderous rhythm against your breast, almost too hard. You stroke his thinning hair, trying to calm him down. It wouldn't do for him to have another attack, not now that you've found yourself in love with him.

And together you catch your breath.

"I wanted to marry you first," he murmurs into your hair. You turn on your side, meeting his eyes with your own. It's not news to you, the wedding dress pretty much gave it away, but he looks a little unhappy and you realise he wanted to do it the right way, the proper way. Well. You've never been particularly good with patience.

"I, Christine Daae, take thee, Erik, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, til death do us part." You're reasonably certain you've missed some of the words and mangled others, but his eyes glow with joy all the same. "Now it's your turn."

He kisses you instead. It's an acceptable trade.

"But would you?" he asks. "Marry me, I mean," he adds when you raise an eyebrow. "The proper way. Before God in a church, with witnesses and rings and - "

You cut him off with a kiss. "Of course," you say, and his smile lights up your world. "Mrs. Erik..."

He smirks. "You could keep your own name, for when you return to the stage," he murmurs, kissing your throat. You feel him stirring against your thigh.

"Again? _Already_?" you ask, mock-glaring at him. "You'll wear your wife out, sir."

"God, I hope so," he replies with a grin, pulling you under him once more.


	2. a sheltered rose needs a little room

Erik / Christine. AU from the moment in Kay when Christine freaks over a spider in her room and Erik gets really sad over having to kill a couple eight-legged little friends.

Thank you so much to the two charming people who reviewed the former chapter to this, it warmed the cockles of my barren little heart. I might write a couple more of these, but as much as I adore _Phantom_ there is only so many moments I can make into smut-filled AUs. I'll do my best, though... Does anyone have any requests?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Susan Kay's brilliant work _Phantom_, her enchanting Erik or her enchantingly weak-willed Christine. Neither do I own oral sex, although that would be an interesting thing to put on a resume. Title from Repo! The Genetic Opera, incidentally the song _Chase the Morning_ by Blind Mag / Sarah Brightman.

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><p><em><strong>a sheltered rose needs a little room to bloom<strong>_

"It's gone now. Go back to bed and I will bring you something to make you sleep without nightmares."

I did not bother to watch her return to her bedroom. Why would I need yet another memory of her walking away from me stored in my brain, ready to be accessed and the misery savoured over once again like a wine for which I have an endless thirst? As she retreats I crumple back into my armchair, feeling the wet slick of tears against my face under the mask. I would not cry like a foolish child over this, over a girl's natural aversion to ugly things. The fire crackles and pops and I focus my eyes on it even as it blurs from the wetness on my cheeks. Oh, Christine -

Her door opens yet again, and I can't help a tiny trickle of anger. Has she found something else ugly to torment? A cockroach, perhaps? A mouse? Can the girl not let me be weak in peace? She wanders out, approaching me but stopping some feet away as though trying to determine whether I am still cross with her. I am, of course, but I can deny her nothing. Such is love.

"Erik," she murmurs, her voice so little and timid. My heart aches for her reluctance to approach me. Though it was the thing I least want in the world, she is ever afraid of me, of this monstrous face that shields an even viler mind. "I don't want to go to sleep just yet. Please, can't I sit with you?" She cannot look me in the eye; her gaze rests upon the patterns in the carpet.

I rise automatically. "Of course, my dear," I say at once. "You may have the armchair, I will pull up the footstool." She'll probably fall asleep in it, the poor dear; it is well past her usual hour of sleep. If she sits upon the footstool she may fall and crack her dear little head open, regardless of the carpet softening the blow, and then where will we be? As I turn away to find the footstool, I almost miss her next words. But I hear them, and they stop me dead.

"It is a very large chair, Erik," she says to her feet. "Couldn't we sit in it together?"

In shock I chuckle at her charming little offer, and immediately regret it, seeing her shrink back into the shadows. But it is amusing. She is comfortable enough around me to snuggle against me in my armchair, as though I am a kind old grandfather, but she worries about approaching me when I am reading. Such a bundle of contradictions, this girl.

"I'm afraid that would not be very proper, child," I reply, still amused at her sweet naiveté.

She finally raises her eyes to mine. "I'm not afraid of you being improper, Erik," she says, those lovely wide eyes pinning me as surely as a pin does a beetle on a card. "I know you'd never hurt me."

In two sentences she has granted me more humanity than the rest of the entire miserable race and I am nearly struck dumb by it. The world that considers me a mindless beast seeking only to spread my filth does not exist in this room, not here, not with her. Yet another sign that Christine, for all her little human faults, is worth more than anyone else I have ever met - even Nadir, even Giovanni. A goddess incarnate in this imperfect little girl-child, with her faith in my humanity enough to let her share the same chair as me, let me into her life and perhaps, someday, into her heart.

I only wish I shared her faith in me but wordlessly, I sit back down, letting her tuck herself against me in the chair. She had been right, there is more than enough room, but the sheer proximity of her makes my palms sweat and my heart race. And, well, _other things _take notice. Of her softness and her curves and the way she looks in her nightgown - her nightgown! I, the monster, have a girl in a nightgown tucked up against me!

"Aren't you going to read again?" she asks and I, powerless to resist, open my book and begin again, this time out loud. She smiles and rests her head on my shoulder; I imagine her sitting in this similar position with her father and feel a little ill. I imagine her sitting in this position with de Chagny and feel even worse.

I read until my voice gives out in an indelicate squeak and I clear my throat, once more rising from the chair. "Forgive me, my dear, but I find myself in need of refreshment." To my surprise she nods.

"Would it be too much trouble for some wine, Erik?" she asks, and I savour the way she says my name.

"Of course not, Christine. You know you can treat this place as your home. I will return with a glass shortly." I make it to the doorway before she speaks again.

"Perhaps..." I turn back to her, hopelessly attuned to her whim. She bites her lip, fidgeting with the hem of her nightgown. "Perhaps you'd better bring the bottle."

In the kitchen I surreptitiously lift my mask, wiping my face with a damp cloth to remove the residue of tears and in an attempt to calm down. My hands shake on the wineglasses and it takes a marked amount of concentration to still them. Her behaviour is unfathomable, in comparison to all previous interactions we have had it is a glaring aberration. Surely she could not be growing to care for me - no, of course not, an old man's foolishness to think that. I half imagine her to be gone when I return, a faerie of my own mind, conjured up in madness and loneliness to relieve the pain of going slowly mad alone, down in the dark.

But she is still there when I return, holding two glasses and the bottle of wine as requested. She gulps her first glass in one and I raise an eyebrow behind my mask at her impatience, filling the next and the next and the next even as I continue reading. When I come to the end of the book, I sigh. "I think that's it for tonight, my dear - " My hand accidently brushes her arm. She shivers and I cringe. "Forgive me, Christine - "

I break off mid sentence. She has picked up my hand and is holding it between her own, studying it with an expression of utmost fascination. Her skin is warm and soft against my own, rough patches on her fingers from needlepoint and darning, and I catalogue every minute sensory detail with gluttonous joy. "So strange," she muses, but when I try to pull away she holds me fast. "Your hand is cold... but when you touch me I don't feel cold at all."

In the long and strange history of my life, this is perhaps the most stupefying thing anyone has ever said to me. "Christine - " I begin, about to tell her to stop, to desist, to not do this to me. But her fingertips on my throat stop me cold. They do not push or stroke, merely rest there, the barest of touches until they begin a gentle glide over my Adam's apple, above my cravat, in soft movements round and round. I can hardly breathe."Why are you doing this, Christine?" I manage through a throat locked tight in mingled disbelief and fear. "Why now?"

She cocks her head as if it should have been obvious. The poor child, she's had far too much wine. "I've never touched you before this," she says as though I'm the dim one for not understanding. "I've been too afraid."

"Afraid?" I ask, and then cringe at my own lost powers of speech. Christ, how is it possible for one drunk little girl to make me feel like a hopeless youth again?

"Not of you," she says, skimming her hands up past the ties of the mask to caress the curve of my ears. My ears, for God's sake, areas of the body up until now I have thought of as only functional necessities shouldn't feel this good to be caressed. "Of what I wanted to do with you. Bad things," she says, dropping her eyes modestly. "Things I'm not supposed to want to do."

"Before you're married?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"At all," she emphasises, looking up at me with the strangest expression even as her fingers knead firm but tender circles in the back of my neck, releasing tension I didn't even know was there. The picture we must make strikes me suddenly; a small, exquisite woman tucked up in a chair with a tall, skeletal, masked man in full evening dress, her hands all over his emaciated body, his unnatural eyes glued to her form and struck dumb with disbelief. She is mapping my body with her hands, and even knowing how very inebriated she is does not stop me from swelling, inching my hips away from her in an vain attempt to disguise my lust. For God's sake, she sees me as a mad old uncle, old enough to be her father and with only fatherly desires in his heart.

"Are you cold everywhere, Erik?" she asks.

"Why do you want to know?" I counter, wishing I could read her as clearly as the rest of the human race. She is as inscrutable to me as I imagine I am to her, although if she brushes up against me any closer she will gain rather _hard_ evidence of my feelings for her.

"I've seen your laboratory," she breathes. It's true; although I have not permitted her to go inside, I have shown her the lab from the doorway and outlined its purpose. "Are you the only one of us two allowed to conduct experiments?" And she leans up as high as she possibly can and kisses my throat.

A kiss. One tiny, insubstantial, unbearable brush of lips to my pitiful skin and I am undone. I tug, losing all pretence of not noticing her beside me, and is no longer sitting on the chair but rather sitting on me. To her credit she doesn't appear bothered by her sudden change in location but it is possible I simply I don't notice, too preoccupied with the sudden weight of her and the way that somehow her legs have managed to fall astride me.

Oh, dear God.

_She is splayed on my lap._

"This is interesting," she says with no trace of coyness, as though genuinely bemused by how she has ended up sitting on my lap. And then she looks down, and even though her cheeks flush bright, she says, "And that is interesting too."

I can only stare at her, mouth open like a fool, in pure and undiluted shock. "Woman, who are you?" I manage, and receive a quizzical stare. I anticipate her next response. "I know you're Christine Daae, but - Christine, this is a little unexpected." Perhaps it's just the alcohol, the substance has defeated far greater people in this world than Christine, but I can't bring myself to care anymore. Every moment like this that occurs without her running away screaming is just a bonus now. Part of me cares she needs nearly a whole bottle of wine to be at ease with me, but not enough to stop me.

"Unexpected?" she queries, wriggling her hips a little, trying to get comfortable on my terribly bony body, and I tense. Oh, she's going to drive me mad.

"Un... expected," I confirm, trying not to notice her movements. "Unusual. Unlikely. Completely out of the bloody ordinary."

"Well, why do you think I'm doing this?"

"My dear, I have no idea."

"None at all?"

I hesitate. "Boredom? Revenge? Sudden, localised madness? Pity," I add without meaning to, cursing.

"You should know me well enough to know I wouldn't do something like this simply out of pity," she replies and the worst thing is, I do. Christine is a kind girl but she wouldn't just martyr herself out of some deluded sense that because the rest of the world has been terrible to me, she should right all of those wrongs by being deeply improper with me in an armchair. I stare into the fire, deep in thought, even as my body can't help but notice the soft, warm girl on my lap. My arms are lax by my sides; I can't bear to touch her. I don't know how.

But I won't let her touch me, not now. Not like this. If she wants this - later, then we shall see. Oh, who am I trying to fool? Certainly not myself. In the morning she will no doubt be horrified at her own actions and perhaps then I will finally have the strength to send her away as she understandably screams and blames me for what has occurred tonight. Using her to satisfy my own perverted lusts... now that would be unforgivable. Any man who would do that to an angel such as Christine would deserve death. But perhaps, bringing her pleasure, touching her soft skin and willing body only to bring her bliss, surely that isn't so bad?

I have to ask her first. "Isn't this a sin, Christine?" I ask, invoking her God in an attempt to bring some gravity to the situation for her.

"No," she replies after some consideration, and soundlessly I curse. "I think God wants his children to be happy."

And that's enough. Because if she thinks God wants me to touch her in very inappropriate places that the de Chagny boy probably hasn't dreamed of, then I'm not going to stand in her way. And all that I want, all that I've ever wanted, is to bring her pleasure, to make her happy. And so I slip my hand between her legs.

I am unprepared for the violence of her reaction, the way her entire body seems to experience a shock, stiffening and then relaxing back into my arms. I am barely brushing her flesh but she is slick against my fingers, and that alone is difficult for me to comprehend. She is aroused because of me. All of this is because of me. Not de Chagny, not the wine, but me. Ugly, monstrous Erik. By some eerie malfunction of the universe this exquisite creature wants my cold skeleton of a form against hers, my frigid long fingers on her skin, my lips -

I press one fingertip into her, afraid to hurt her. She shudders and says yes, and _oh-God-she's-so-tight-and-warm_. I half want to run away in fear and awe, but she shifts and suddenly my whole finger is inside of her and then maybe two and three and oh I did that, put that expression on her face. I tentatively move my fingers inside of her, with absolutely no idea what I am doing and only her reactions to tell me I'm doing it right. She turns her face to my shoulder as though in a delirium of ecstasy, her lips against the fabric of my evening jacket. I wish I could feel them on my skin. I scissor my fingers and am rewarded with a moan. I rub my thumb against the nub at the top of her thighs and she moans again. And when I do both at the same time - oh, my name, in _that_ voice.

I need more.

I withdraw my hand from her and stare at in amazement. This repugnant limb, these hideous digits, the cause of so much pain and death, were just touching a woman. Touching _Christine_. It feels like a blasphemy and absolution all in one. I want to lick them and I do, lifting the mask a little to suck at the wetness she has left on my skin. Christine stares at me and I flush, feeling like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh. My. God," she breathes, chest heaving, and I realise that she wasn't surprised, but rather... aroused.

This whole situation is so surreal I might as well check in my sanity at the door. And so I drop to my knees on the carpet, pulling her drawers down in one smooth motion. She starts and presses her knees together.

"Let me, please Christine, let me..." I am begging and I know it and I don't care, just as long as I can bury my unworthy face in her, breathe in her scent and never think again.

She does not reply in words, but she nods and spreads her little legs, opening herself for my eyes. This is heaven and this is hell, and the two meet in fire and uncontrollable beauty. I don't care how I've come to be here or what I've had to do; this is what it's always been about, the sight of this beautiful girl with her body open and waiting, and waiting only for me. She is pink and perfect, dark hair a contrast to the inviting flesh, and I am simultaneously fascinated and frightened.

And yes, I've seen this done before, with the gypsies and in Persia and even here in the Opera, but I have no idea what to do. What if I do it wrong and she doesn't like it? And I have my mask on. Quickly, I slip my cravat from around my neck, tying it over her eyes.

"Erik?" she asks, her body stiffening a little with fear, legs closing a little.

"Trust me, Christine," I reply, and manage to resist layering my voice with that extra level of command, of extortion to my will. It isn't needed anyway. She relaxes, her legs falling open once more, and I fumble with the ties of my mask, usual dexterity swept away. It seems to take an unholy amount of time to get of the mask and then there is nothing between me and her. I press my lips to her tentatively.

The feeling is like being dumped in cold water and heated with flames simultaneously. Oh God; the taste of her, the sensation - I will never be able to be satisfied with morphine's cold comfort now I have known the warm steal of this drug inside my veins. And the sounds - who knew my name could sound like that, that any woman would scream a monster's name as he tongued his way up her inner thigh? Certainly not me, and yet I was the one doing it.

I allowed myself a moment, just one, to listen, to feel the way her hands clench in my thinning hair and her legs feel hooked over my shoulders. To appreciate the way she looks spread out in my armchair - how will I ever be able to sit there again without remembering this? - with her nightgown hiked up around her waist.

"Erik Erik please, oh God hurry up, Erik I want you to - "

Smiling, I do as I'm told.

I have my head between her legs, and I haven't even kissed her on the mouth yet. Oh, the contradiction of it makes my head spin. Or perhaps that's just the lack of oxygen.

Shortly I am halted by her hand in what little hair I do have, pulling me from her silken flesh. "Erik, stop!" Her heavenly voice is distressed. "You have to stop!"

I'm hurt, but I pull away anyway. "Did I do something wrong, Christine?"

"No!" she say vehemently. "You did everything right! I just don't want you to die!"

I pause. "What? I'm sorry, my dear, but what?"

"If you don't stop soon you won't be able to breathe because you don't have a nose and you'll die!" she says all in one great rush and I can't help it, I laugh, a great full belly laugh that comes from deep inside me. It feels like an exorcism, like all the dark cobwebs in my soul have been swept out by her helpless, sweet concern.

"So you didn't want me to stop because you objected to what I was doing?" I tease, and am stunned to see her adorable face flush brick red.

"No," she murmurs, barely audible. "I liked it." You can't help but grin.

"So you wouldn't mind too much if I..." I wave a hand in the general direction - not that she can see it - but she gets the message anyway, and her emphatic nod makes me chuckle as I return to her once more.

It doesn't take long. She had been nearly there before she stopped me and something about that is touching, that she would pause in the midst of her ecstasy to check that I was not about to asphyxiate between her legs. What a way to go.

She bucks up and had I a nose, it may have been bruised.

"ERIK!"

I think they may have heard that one up in the Opera.

"Oh," she coos quietly, almost a song. "Oh, God." I take that to mean I did it right, and as I sit back on my haunches I mentally congratulate myself. Well done, old boy. Excellent show. Christine seems to think so as well as her hands find my shoulders and she pulls me into a bruising, searing kiss. I wonder if she can taste herself on my tongue. My head spins and I shiver under her firm hands, overwhelmed by this final intimacy My first kiss. When I pull away, she follows me with her hands, trying to find me without rising from the chair. The cravat is still on her eyes.

I need to slow my heartbeat down before I have another attack.

"I'll be back in a moment, Christine," I murmur and she nods, leaning against the back of the armchair, her expression one of simultaneous bliss and drowsiness. I walk back into the kitchen and reaffix my mask, once again with shaking hands. Did that really just happen? What the bloody hell do I do now? Nothing to be done but to return to her, to take that cravat off her eyes and discuss the future...

"Christine?"

She is asleep. Curled up in the chair like a child, looking far too young for all the things I want of her, the damn cravat still over her eyes.

I could wake her up. I could demand she finish what she has started. But I love her, and it is very late, after all. And so I put her to bed, pulling back the sheets, laying her down, tucking her in like a little girl. I untie my cravat tenderly, bringing her sweetly closed eyes into view, and stand back to look at her.

She sleeps with her hair spread around her, a halo against the pillow, eyelashes like soot against her flushed cheek. I half expect there to be some mark on her, like that of Cain, to say that I have touched her, that I have claimed her. But there is not. She is as fresh and untouched and perfect as she was before she asked to sit with me in my chair. I want her and I love her more than life, and I am pulled constantly between these two poles. There is no other place in this universe or any other that I would rather be.

And so I return to my chair, my book, the location of all of tonight's debauchery, the throb of aching, unrelieved flesh against my trousers.

I don't know where we're going to go from here.

But anything's got to be better than where we were before.


	3. lady is a tramp

I wanted to write a dominant!Christine fic, but I ended up with this instead. Wrote most of the filth in this while hugging a stuffed froggie. There's something really wrong about that. This little scribble picks up just after Erik pops the question. In Kay, of course.

Disclaimer: late for work. Can't be bothered. Don't own.

* * *

><p><em><strong>lady is a tramp<strong>_

_"I won't beg!" he said with sudden coldness, "not even for your love. I have asked you to marry me, but I don't want your answer now. I would like you to come back tomorrow evening, after the performance, and tell me what you have decided. Will you promise to do that, Christine... will you promise to come back and tell me... even if your answer is no?"_

_Erik, Susan Kay's Phantom_

I knelt on the floor and was grateful for its solid reassurance. The world seemed to tip and spin around me, the elegant furnishings of his chamber seeming to slip and slide. Perhaps this is the effect morphine has on Erik, but I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to feel this inertia, as though the world itself had entered a new and violent spin. I was aware of the silence, stretching, stretching out far longer than acceptable for me to remain speechless. Erik's presence was a tower of stone, a fortress whole and entire and utterly impenetrable. His face behind the mask would no doubt be as emotionless as the mask itself.

So this was the endgame. Had that been the goal all along? He was the most purposeful of men, every physical movement so icily controlled that it was all too easy to believe he could even control the world around him too. All of Erik's passion, his wrath, his fire and his zeal, and this was what it could be distilled down to. Phrases like 'six months' and 'true marriage' and 'young widow'. Erik demanded everything of me, but he would give me only a fraction of himself, the tiniest speck of the great and wondrous heart that beat in his skeletal chest. And that was the truth of it. Erik would have possessed me utterly had I given him but half an indication, but God forbid I try to do the same. God forbid the playing field ever be levelled to the point we could meet as equals. He was the man and I was the woman, and regardless of any other hold he had over me, he saw that as enough to govern our relationship. _I don't want your answer now, Christine._ How dare he deny me the right to speak, to decide the terms of my own fate?

And that outrage was enough to return me my voice.

"That's it, then?" I asked, finally raising my eyes to his, when I felt I could manage speech without screaming. "That's all you want. All you want of me."

His eyes glittered behind the mask. There was passion there, oh yes. It was a matter of coaxing it out. I was done with silence and with long unspoken glances, his unfathomable answers and his cryptic words. The attribute I appreciated most in Raoul was his frankness, his blatant regard for me, yes, but more than that his honesty. The sensations of confusion and turmoil that accompanied Erik's presence - I never suffered such feelings around Raoul. But then, Raoul did not make me feel so wildly free, a creature of liquid light and gossamer wings. Erik had taught me to want more than what the rest of the world promised, exposed me to a fairytale kingdom of wonders. But he persisted in approaching me as a child, a babe barely out of the cradle incapable of caring for herself one moment and then fervently as a woman the next. Last night, when we sang Aida, and now, proposing marriage. He cannot have one or the other. He must choose.

"What else is there?" he inquires sharply. "No, do enlighten me, my dear, as I seem to be lacking in expertise in matters of the heart. What more could there possibly be?"

Oh, what more could there be, other than demands and limitations and obedience? Between us, there was a vast gulf of unsaid words, unspoken sensations. Would we linger here in this half state forever?

"You want to marry me," I pursued doggedly, a mongrel worrying at a bone. "Why?"

He chuckled grimly. "I know you're not this dim, Christine. You must know by now." Suspicions are not the same as knowing something for the hard, incontrovertible fact that it is. I shook my head, and I could imagine his eyebrow arching tartly behind the mask. When did I learn him so well?

"Ah," he breathed, an unimaginable quality of sarcasm present in that one syllable. "So we return to our former point, then, my child. You would have me beg." The condescension in his voice fell upon me like a plague of festering dead things, his glorious voice subdued beneath its weight. It hurt my very mind to listen to it, shafts of pain straight into my skull through the tender openings of my ears. It gave me strength.

"Why would you bother begging for my love? You've never even asked for it," I dared to say, raising my eyes to him. "You call me your child, you treat me like a babe, and then you turn around completely like last night with Aida." He stiffened defensively at once. "And now wanting to marry me! I don't - I can't even - " Confusion left me incoherent, unable to articulate the seething torrent of emotion rushing through me. Erik looked more than a little disturbed by my less than customary display of deeper emotion.

"What are you driving at?" he asked warily.

"I don't know!" I burst out. "How am I supposed to know with you! You've told everything about you but not once of your feelings for me! You send me away because I'm a - a distraction but propose marriage when I come back! Erik, I don't know what you want from me!"

I didn't know my voice could be so loud or fill up so much space. Erik, I knew, could shout and make the very furniture quake, but perhaps some transference of power has passed from me to him in my days here, for the room seems to echo with my words.

"What I want from you?" he echoes, in a dreadful hollow voice. "What... what I want?" He looks less than he usually is, his tall frame shrunken inwards around himself.

"Yes," I whisper, unwilling to raise my voice again, to unleash the power that had before consumed the air of the room. "Do you..." God, I feel like a prize idiot. "Do you love me?"

His head snapped up at that, golden eyes white hot. And the sound he made was a laugh, the creak of ancient floorboards and the whine of overused machinery, but still a laugh.

"Are you honestly in such ignorance of my feelings for you?" he asked bitterly. "I couldn't believe it possible. Christine, I love you, I adore you, and I would make you my bride because the thought of existing a day without you is more than I can bear." It was as though a weight lifted from his shoulders; his spine straightened and his eyes were level with mine. We were open with one another for the first time and it was positively dizzying.

I rose to my feet unsteadily, wishing he'd put a hand out and assist me in rising. He didn't, of course.

"Well, then," I whispered, almost more to myself than to Erik. "That... that changes things." I walked towards him, wavering a little, my knees unsteady from too long kneeling. Behind the mask his lamplight eyes were guarded, as though he was trapped with a wild animal and unable to escape. That was me. I had that effect on him. How had I never noticed before.

"How does it change things, Christine?" he asked, and when we were a scant two paces apart I stopped, and his relief was palpable.

"I thought you just wanted to possess me," I explained slowly, sorting it out in my head even as I articulated the words. "To own me. But you love me." Raising my eyes to his was hard, hard to force them up his slim hips and chest and shoulders, to push up even further over the white expanse of mask to meet him dead on. "You love me," I repeated wonderingly. That he cared for me, wanted me was inexplicable and strange - and I would not question it. Not now.

"Yes," he sighed. "Oh, Christine. Yes."

This was fitting, after Erik and my dramatic history together, that there would be shouting and tears and confusion and misunderstandings. That we would almost miss one another, like ships in the night, rather than meet in the middle to resolve our difficulties. Entirely too stubborn, the both of us, but it was no time for stubbornness now. I was ready to make my decision.

"Yes," I said decisively, and he looked at me like I'd reordered the heavens. "Yes, then, Erik. I'll marry you."

And so we were married. Do you need to know the details? It was a small wedding, attended only by the half-awake priest and two altar boys as witnesses. When it came time to kiss the bride, Erik threw an ungodly number of francs in the general direction of the altar and fled, gripping my hand with an unholy fervency. And I guessed that was that.

We returned to the house below the Opera, and somehow its orderly, familiar nature was striking. It was as though now the dynamic between Erik and I had shifted so dramatically, so should our home. Surely I should have returned to discover the furniture on the ceiling, a maze to wander through. But no. These were the thoughts of a fool, the ramblings of a child, and I was a child no longer. I was married, to my husband, and tonight was my wedding night.

It was something of a comfort to think that really, he knew less about such matters than I did. That he would... how had he put it? 'Accept any conditions that I cared to name?' I could bolt the door tonight, lock him from my heart and my bed, and get quietly between my cold sheets and listen to the silence as he no doubt climbed into his box.

No. Absolutely not. My husband was not going to sleep in a box ever again, not if I had my way about it.

So there we stood in the drawing room, staring at one another. It was late, far too late for music or conversation or any pretensions beyond what was truly going to occur. My husband was going to take me to bed. Now I just had to convince him of it.

"Christine," he finally said, and I raised my eyes to his attentively. "You have made me... the happiest man alive, tonight. The happiest. I can ask no more of you." I frowned. This might be harder than I had first thought. "Now, I think it is best you retire to your bed - "

"I'm going to take a bath," I interrupted. "I think you should take one too. It's... soothing." I eyed Erik discreetly; he looked like his heart was playing up again.

"I don't... have a bath," he muttered. "In my chambers."

"Use mine, then," I replied in exasperation, and his eyes widened. "I mean, after I'm finished, of course."

Oh, hell. We were the most inept couple ever.

"This is hardly proper," he spluttered.

"We're married, Erik," I reminded him, and went to take my bath.

I didn't know if he would do as I asked, but sure enough there he was, standing in his evening dress with a towel and a pile of black silk clutched in his arms. I exited in my nightgown and felt his eyes shred me up and down, dissembling every detail and storing it in his marvellous memory. For a moment our eyes were locked and it seemed he would never look away, but he took one step, and then two, and when the door closed behind him I dropped to my knees before it and listened.

The run of the water, the sigh he made when he got in, the faint splashing sounds. I was listening to my husband take a bath and it was oh so domestic, so blissfully normal. And it fascinated me. It was an eerie kind of vulnerability, a strange sort of affection. Erik was naked in there. If he had left the door unlocked I could walk in and see him laid bare, see every hidden secret and every disguised emotion in front of me. I could see _him_.

But, no. That was a betrayal he might never forgive. And so I waited.

The water drained, and I heard the soft rubbing motions of the towel over his skin, could imagine him hanging it over the railing to dry. I got up from the floor - it would hardly do for him to find me listening to him bathe - and into my bed, wishing I could feel a little more afraid than I felt.

Erik emerged in black silk Oriental pyjamas, masked, the light behind him giving him a sort of halo. And it was like being with him every other time, when he was buttoned up and swathed and protected by layers of clothes. But - oh, but. His feet were bare. Big feet, man feet, and utterly normal feet.

"Come on, Erik," I said, and hoped my smile was more inviting than my insipid words. Good lord, girl, you are as dull as a spoon. And yet here I was, with my husband, here at this desolation point.

He slipped into the bed, cold, what little hair he had damp from the bath. The scent of death subdued beneath my blueberry soap and vanilla shampoo. Thank God.

The light from the bathroom was gone, and I blew out the last candle, and commanded him to take of his mask.

"You are my husband," I said, and for all the times I'd told myself that, it meant more to say it out loud, to him. I heard the rustling of cloth, his hands at the ties, and then the gentle thud onto the floor.

"Wife," was all he murmured in response, and I should feel disgrace and dismay, but for the way he trembled.

And so we lay in the dark, as the silence built, and for all his quietness I might have thought he was asleep but for the irregularity of his breathing. "Tell me a secret," I whispered spontaneously when I could bear the quiet no longer, and felt his shoulders tense.

"A secret?" he echoed, as though I'd asked for a camel that could fit through the eye of a needle or something else equally ridiculous.

"Yes, a secret. What... what's your favourite colour?" I asked, and felt him relax as he chuckled.

"Black," he muttered, as though it really was a secret. I giggled.

"Black doesn't count," I countered childishly, and I could just make out Erik dipping his head in grave acknowledgement.

"Then blue," he said softly, hand coming up to graze my cheek just below my eye. Those same cheeks flooded with head. Marrying Erik would have been so much easier had he not been such a genuinely sweet man underneath the madness, and a quick recklessness overtook me.

"Can you... you can see in the dark, Erik?" I asked, but I knew full well the answer.

"Yes, Christine," was the sober reply.

"Good," I replied, and slithered out from under the sheets to lie atop the quilt. Nothing separated me from the cool air and from his eyes but my nightgown - and then, that too was gone. I felt his eyes on me like a brand, the cold puckering my nipples into hard points. I felt wild and wanton and completely untamed, even in this domestic normality of lying nude beside my husband. Except he wasn't just any old husband, he was Erik, and this was the first time between us. The very first.

His eyes were gold in the darkness, and they burned. "Touch me," I crooned, hardly recognising my own voice. "Trust me, Erik."

I took his hands and placed them on my body, but the moment I moved my own away, they dropped like a stone. Erik stared up at me, helpless confusion lighting his eyes, and I imagined his cheeks to be a rather fetching shade of crimson.

"I don't know what to do, Christine," he stammered, and it would be hard to bear except oh, this was unmapped territory. Erik was like new snow, untouched and unsullied by hands and skin other than mine. It was entrancing. My hands would go where no others had roamed before, I would feel parts of Erik that had lain dormant for too long. These were uncharted waters and here be monsters, except the monster was lying looking up at me with too-wide eyes and he was no kind of monster at all.

Just a man.

It gave me the courage to rip back the covers and settle astride him, centre to centre, feeling the hardness of him against me. He was clothed and I was not, and somehow the contrast made me feel impossibly wanton, madly free. And it was only that confidence that gave me the strength to start on the buttons of his shirt. He was inflexible, hands snapping like steel vices around my wrists as I reached the third button.

"Christine, don't - " The sheer wretchedness in his voice wound its way around my chest and squeezed, tight. Poor, poor Erik.

"I can't see you, Erik," I whispered, and unbelievably, he relaxed. "You're safe here." I kept up this mindless stream of prattle, talking to him even as I stripped off the shirt, his body lifting so I could cast it aside. The revelation of his bony chest and deceptively brittle limbs would have been enough to derail me, but I moved my hands to his trousers almost against my own will. I wanted to touch his skin, I wanted it like oxygen, but more than that I needed that feeling again of the blood rushing through my veins, the heat animating me in a way I'd never dreamed of.

And when we were skin to skin in the dark, the crescendo of that massive sensation filled me like a bubble of warmth expanding to fit into every dark crevice of my body. I was with Erik. We were together.

He was mine.

He was also terrified.

He lay like a corpse under me, the stubborn hardness of him brushing me but his hands by his sides. the golden lights of his eyes skittering everywhere but my body. I said his name like a prayer and he looked at me, at my face, at my eyes. "What is it?" I asked, leaning down until we were pressed completely together, and he let out a groan of pure frustration.

"Forgive me, my dear. I'm trying to convince myself you're not a hallucination," he replied, and I wanted to both laugh and weep. Poor, dear Erik.

"I am no hallucination," I replied, and the shift of his eyes meant he was turning his head on the pillow, turning away. I wanted so badly to convince him.

"Let me love you. Let me take care of you," I murmured. I could feel him swallow convulsively.

"No one... no one has ever... ever wanted to - " I stopped him with a finger to the lips. I didn't need to hear it.

"I want to," I affirmed, and lowered my lips to his.

He kissed like a starving man, like a boy unschooled in sensuality, like a maestro left too long at his music and only just rediscovering the universe. We kissed until my head spun and I could only imagine his was the same - perhaps more, considering his striking lack of a nose. I kissed that hole, those misshapen lips, the parchment skin and the throbbing veins before sliding my lips down that fascinating throat - sometimes the only part of him to be seen - to collarbones frighteningly prominent, shoulders sticking through his skin. I counted every rib with my lips, lapped at every tiny protruding bone, and licked down his navel, mentally vowing to fatten him up.

My eyes were adjusting to the dark, but there was no way I was going to tell him that. He had a tiny diamond shaped birthmark on his right hip, just to the left of where the skin stretched taut over the bone. I blew on it, just to see what would happen, and his toes curled.

"Christine - oh, darling, my love, Christine - " Erik was sparing with praise at the best of times - fair, but not gushing. But I touched my tongue to his belly button, ultimate proof he was born like any other man, and he said things I'd never imagined I might hear him say. His skin was paper-fine and soft beneath my lips, the faint bite of salt from sweat on my tongue. But oh, the taste of him. I lived in an opera house, I had seen my fair share of dirty, unwashed men. But Erik was _clean_, the conflicting scents of my own bath products and the faint aroma of damp and ink and dust. Technically, I suppose, it could be described as the scent of death, dry dust, the scent of things long since passed. But more than that it was the scent of Erik, of his tidy little home, of mornings spent at music and afternoons of conversation and evenings of stories. And this... this unfamiliar being-time with my husband, this lying in the dark, feeling the coolness of his skin.

It heated under my hands.

Erik appeared to have lost the ability to articulate words. The broken murmur of ohs and ahs and sheer, speechless moans were enough to unhinge me a little. Erik, man of more words than any other I'd ever known, was wordless under the onslaught of my kisses and my sighs and my affection. He fell apart beneath my hands and I held him together. Was this what marriage was supposed to be about? It felt like it. Erik had shown me so much, reflecting his love for me in a thousand little ways, and now I was showing him. We were equal.

But all I was doing was touching, running my fingertips and my lips over the unfamiliar plains and dunes of his body. I suppose for a man as unused to touch as Erik, even the lightest of caresses could feel like heaven. But that want was surging in me again. He might be satisfied with just this, but I wanted more.

"Christine, please," he begged, and that was enough to lower my head, to take him in my mouth, to feel him twitch against my tongue and his hands hesitantly snake into my hair. Everything I had ever been heard about intimacy was telling me this was wrong, that this was not the way love was supposed to occur between a man and a woman. But I had kissed Erik all over, felt the rhythm of his pulse in his throat and the lift and fall of breath in his chest. Every line, every bony ridge, every scar - and God knows he had enough of those. This was just one more kiss, one more way of showing Erik how I loved him. Better women have gone to hell for less, and I didn't care. God had no place in this room.

"Christine, going to - " Erik arched and my mouth flooded, salty and bitter and awful but worth it for the noises he made. I swallowed. What else was there to do? He hadn't left me much choice, but I wasn't angry with him, not when he stroked my hair as he came down from whatever cloud of bliss he'd been floating on.

"Oh, I am sorry," he apologised, voice languid and body relaxed, looking distinctly non-apologetic. I couldn't help but laugh.

"You don't look sorry," I replied, crawling up to kiss him. His eyes were wide and briefly I wondered if he could taste himself on me. Judging from the enthusiasm of that kiss, though, if he could he certainly didn't mind.

"No, I am," he said, this time sounding genuinely remorseful when we broke for air. "That was... not how I wanted to end it."

I arched an eyebrow. "So you didn't enjoy it then?" I pretended to turn away, insulted and was not surprised when he followed, impossibly fast, impossibly uninhibited, long lean body against mine.

"Oh, I didn't say that," he purred, and I pushed my hips back against him, longing for sensation. He chuckled. "Minx," he growled in my ear, something stirring against my backside. Two could play at his game. I shoved back, reclaiming my former position on top of him, finding his erection with my hand. He groaned. It was though he had not climaxed at all - but, I recalled, I was with a man who had endured a lifetime of celibacy. I would probably find myself in this situation often.

I really should have been more disturbed by it than I was.

With care, I lowered myself onto him, and braced myself for the pain that did not come. Maybe it should hurt. Maybe I am so far gone in sin I should be shrieking in agony but I am not. All I felt was warmth, Erik's warmth, even as his hands were cool on my hips to guide me, one hand sneaking down to - oh. Oh.

Someone's been doing his research.

Erik was touching me - my _husband_ was touching me, those fingers that were so elegant on the piano at work between my legs. The sight was humbling and glorious and it felt like there were arias in my head, in my heart, a melody of my own making.

"Christine," he gasped, and for all I've never particularly felt one way or another about my name, I could become too accustomed to hearing him say it, in that voice. "Eyes clenched wide shut, Oh, Christine, I'm - "

"Look at me," I said without being entirely aware of it, hands braced on the wall of muscle that was his chest. "Erik, look at me," I repeated, and when his amber irises reappeared it was enough to send me shivering.

"Y-yes?"

"You're mine, now," I said, staring deep into his eyes, feeling him unravel beneath me, the rhythm between us becoming frantic and irregular. "Say it. Say that you're mine."

"Yours, Christine," he groaned, and something clicked into place inside of me, as though I'd found a groove to slot into. "Only yours."

And when he bucked up into me for the last time, throat straining, cords of muscle rippling under his skin - the power in me leaped from my centre all the way to my fingertips, leaving humming in its wake.

Oh, I loved him.

I collapsed on top of him, breathless, feeling his chest rise and fall rapidly and for a moment fearing for his less than reliable heart. But no, he was grinning in the darkness, a schoolboy enthralled with his first taste of ecstasy.

"What are you smirking about?" I asked when I could speak without gasping, and had he a nose, I was sure he'd be wrinkling it.

"Making love to my wife," he replied, looking entirely too pleased with himself. I tapped him tartly on the arm.

"Excuse me, sir, but I think I was the one doing the 'making love'," I said sharply, but it dissolved when I began to laugh. "Erik, I love you." It was not what I intended to say - I was going to tease him a little more - but it was the right thing to say. His eyes misted over a little and he wrapped a skeletal arm around me to draw me closer.

"I love you, Christine."

This will be no ordinary marriage. Erik would possess me, own me, mould me into a further expression of his great genius. There was no doubt about it.

But in the bedroom, I was in charge.


End file.
